Can careerism give rise to products with no natural market demand? \ stacker news ~econ

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Can careerism give rise to products with no natural market demand?

693 sats \ 16 comments \ @SimpleStacker 13 Mar econ

Or, can demand for career enhancing projects lead to the creation of products that have little-to-no natural market demand?

So, the market is awash with ill-advised AI use cases, from AI gaming assistants to AI wingmen for dating, that seem like terrible fits for a use-case. I wonder if the following phenomenon is at work. I haven't seen anyone write about it:

People inside companies are jumping onto AI projects so they can add an AI project to their resume. Thus, poorly thought out AI projects get approved because so many people internally want to be a part of it.

I saw this dynamic in the previous company I worked part-time for. I was working on some AI-stuff for them, and even though I personally thought the fit was pretty poor, everyone I talked to was super excited and wanted to be on the project. As a part-timer, I often thought that I was the one who had to tamper expectations the most... which is a weird place to be in because I'm just a part-timer, I just want to do what I'm told, not steer the ship. But the people steering wanted to do it, even though IMO it wasn't really a good fit for the company.

So, yeah, wonder if anyone has come across any writing on this phenomenon.

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100 sats \ 1 reply \ @Signal312 14 Mar

I saw the EXACT same thing with "big data" projects, many years ago. There were managers and devs aggressively pushing for this kind of project, so they could then put it on their Linked In.

And it worked! For them, anyway, but for the company it was a completely loss, in terms of the project - it never worked. Maybe was never completed, I don't remember.

I specifically heard people saying that once they put these types of projects on their resume, they would get daily contacts about jobs.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker OP 15 Mar

Yeah, it's an interesting phenomenon for sure. I definitely get this vibe from a lot of the ill advised chat bots and AI assistants popping up in products everywhere

60 sats \ 6 replies \ @optimism 14 Mar

People inside companies are jumping onto AI projects so they can add an AI project to their resume.

All for a temporary - at best - imagined moat over other resumes. However if you're recruiting you'll learn to see through it quickly. Because 99% of the rubbish resumes you get will mention AI. You'll ignore it and hire the people who don't highlight it come interviews.

100 sats \ 5 replies \ @SimpleStacker OP 14 Mar

I do wonder to myself how recruiters try to sift through it

At my university there is a massive need for people who actually understand the fundamentals of AI, but so many people are claiming to know about it (because they know how to operate ChatGPT or something) that it's hard for the administrators who know nothing to figure out who is worth listening to

30 sats \ 4 replies \ @optimism 14 Mar

Fundamentals of forward text prediction (= what we call AI nowadays)? Hire someone who previously worked at Google Search. Doubt you can afford their ask tho. Next stop Github proof privileged kids.

100 sats \ 3 replies \ @SimpleStacker OP 14 Mar

I think what I mean is someone who can actually sift through the hype and marketing bullshit. It would require knowing something about how these models work under the hood... but even more importantly, how the models are different, as well as the economics of the AI marketplace.

One example is that the university inked a deal with OpenAI to have them provide ChatGPT free to everyone and they marketed this as a big win.

But details of the deal are scarce. It wasn't clear to me which models we'll get access to. The administrators don't even seem to realize there are different levels to ChatGPT and couldn't answer questions about which ones we're getting when asked. (Maybe I'm not asking the right people.) But in either case, I'm worried that we just paid a bunch of money for obsolete, or commoditized models that are basically for free to everyone already anyway. I'll be surprised if we're getting unlimited access to o1 with DeepResearch mode enabled, for example.

100 sats \ 2 replies \ @optimism 14 Mar

I'm used to working with competent purchasing / contract management peeps on these kind of things. They'll ask painful questions, get feedback from "SMEs" and so on. They'll bitch when there is no internal knowledge or when there are no honest enough people that will admit to the limits of their expertise.

inked a deal with OpenAI to have them provide ChatGPT free to everyone and they marketed this as a big win.

I think the more interesting part of this is what the uni brings to the table? There must be something you're giving (up), as "free" implies there is another benefit to OpenAI. Maybe it's just a vendor-lock, in the good old lock-'em-while-they're-young ways of MS and Goog -e.g. an "exclusive partnership" where no money but simply product preference changes hands?

But details of the deal are scarce.

Yeah that's a red flag.

100 sats \ 1 reply \ @SimpleStacker OP 14 Mar

I don't know if the university paid anything, they probably did. But it'll be free to faculty students and staff of the university. I just don't know what level of models we get access to, whether there are usage limits, etc. the deal was announced but implementation hasn't happened yet

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37 sats \ 0 replies \ @kilianbuhn 14 Mar

There is this famous Ford quote, I can't find it exactly but it went along the lines of if he had made what people demanded he would have made a faster horse 🐎

"natural market demand" isn't just whatever people want now. It can be discovered or created.

40 sats \ 4 replies \ @Undisciplined 13 Mar

I had never thought about this, but it certainly seems like something that must be happening.

Likely there have been games that were known to be trash from the outset and various other product lines that were only initiated because it was a job expectation. I know there's academic work that was only done because someone was expected to do academic work (that might even be an enormous share of it).

It's a similar logic to Public Choice Theory (maybe it is just Public Choice Theory), but applied to firms.

51 sats \ 3 replies \ @SimpleStacker OP 13 Mar

Oh, for sure most academic research is like that, but I'm not sure what the analogy to natural demand would be there, haha.

I'm sure in gaming there have been times where companies pushed out games in specific genres simply because it was the hot thing to do, despite it being a really poor fit for their portfolio/expertise.

30 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined 13 Mar

It seems like your point is about individual actors within a company, so I'm imagining a software engineer might be promoted to a position where leading development of a game is expected, but they don't have a good idea, so they just do something.

The natural demand for academic research is the dozen or so popular articles every year that get people to subscribe to Science or Nature, plus the two or three popular non-fiction books. You could probably throw some finance newsletters into that mix, as well.

71 sats \ 1 reply \ @Bell_curve 13 Mar

It’s like professional sports especially basketball

Who benefits from a viral highlight? The person not the team and certainly not the coach or owner

I suppose the fans benefit too

Launching unlimited three point shots is great for money ball but terrible for fans

40 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 13 Mar

I think the moneyball point is more relevant. Sports are an entertainment product, but the players aren't trying to entertain, they're trying to do some combination of winning and getting paid.

Moneyball gets them more winning, but it's less desired by the consumers.

30 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 13 Mar

Absolutely

Careerism is about what favors the employee vs the company